Issue 92 - The crest of a wave

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The crest of a wave

Springbank's sales and marketing manager Peter Currie is a happy man, and he has every right to be. The whole distillery frontline team has been away travelling recently, to trade shows in Oslo, Calgary, Milan and New York. They have been speaking to scores of people, listening to lots of views. Wherever they have gone the message coming back to them has been the same: that Scotch whisky in general, and Springbank in particular, are on the crest of wave right now. The stats in themselves may be impressive, but for the time being at least forget sales figures and profit, this is about taste. On whisky's frontline, drinkers are getting it.

“This is without a doubt a great time to be selling whisky,” says Currie. “Once whisky drinkers stuck to one favourite brand, now people are drinking from a wide choice of whiskies. I like the fact that there are new younger drinkers coming through, and more women drinking whisky. They are all asking the right questions and they are not scared of big flavours.

“It's not just for whisky, either. We have seen a similar thing with big flavoured beers, Belgian beers. We see it with cask strength whisky. It's not about the strength of the alcohol, it's about the intensity of the flavour.

“People are more comfortable with the idea of cask strength whisky now. We have long experience in full strength whiskies because of Cadenhead but it is generally understood a lot better now. In fact we're finishing Springbank 100 proof and replacing ...